Responses:

when sujatha(writer) explains something very basic in science with his own hasyam and tamil knowledge and simplicity we r able to understand that very easily bcos he explains it in our way. he occassionally uses jargons and hence doesn't terrify us much. whereas when a pure scientist, after his/her invention, explain his/her theory, even if v r science/engineering graduates v feel it very difficult to understand. its bcos he/she talks in science more and less in our way.

the same story can fit here. carnatic (or for that matter any classical music) is a grammatical way of music, it plane is different from the plane in which we (ordinary music lovers like me having no or very minimum classical knowledge) dwell.

that is why a pure carnatic kriti in mohanam (termed as a raaga for melody) may not be very much appreciated by us whereas a film song in the same mohanam like "thoongadha vizhigaL rendu" (am i right?) is very much appreciated by us. its not a fault of carnatic music and not ours also.

we cannot blame the pure scientist who is explaining his/her theory only in scientific terminology. it has to be in that way or else it may not be possible to explain entirely and thoroughly the theory behind the invention. we may not be able to appreciate that. on the same hand we should not blame it also. Same explanation holds good for carnatic music.

Not only just scientific theories and carnatic music fall in this category. For that matter any discipline in this world, from economics to astronomy to literature falls in this category.

hence the moral(!) of this story is; carnatic is like grammatical tamizh whereas film music is spoken tamizh (ofcourse, some film music r not so polite they r like madras tamizh some might be polite like kongu/madurai tamizh. but all r spoken tamizh). These r built based on grammatical tamizh but have deviations from grammar.

hope i left u in midst of maze...confused r'nt u??? sorry for that...thats my style :-(

From: G. Kuppusamy (@ 156.153.255.250)
on: Tue Dec 26 00:09:37 EST 2000
so if v like science very much v will first start appreciating the 'sujatha' way of explanations. that will kindle our urge to learn more science and hence we shall slowly step into science and who knows we may become a scientist also. similarly if v start appreciating the goodness in film music(not just shaking body) it will urge us to do something in music so v slowly step into classical music learning (be it carnatic or any other classical form) or atleast v'll love to know about these things in music.

After attaining that level (oh! then were v in low level...debatable...it depends on how v see it) v can appreciate the classical music and scientific theories...FULL STOP

While I too accept that good music need not bother about language; no can deny the fact that music heard in known language will definitely be better appreciated.

Another major hurdle is- there is an invisible layer surrounding this carnatic music form with a feeling of 'High class' caste / society... which is not fully accidental.. there are some deliberate attempts to keep that going in that way.

It is as foolish as saying that God will understand only 'Sanskrit'. (Personally I feel very offended when I see boards in TamilNadu temples saying 'Ingu Thamizhil-lum archanai seiyappadum' ... )

In this scenario, the carnatic music based film songs are a boon to the Tamil fans. I am sure there could be hundreds of such pure classical Tamil Film songs even with decent lyrics (on subjects - Bakthi/Philosophy/Nature etc.) that can be sung in concerts... But again when something appears in cinema, a section of people will feel that 'punitham' illai... EnnamO, sabhaakkalil nadakkum koothugal ellaam romba punitham maadhiri.

From: kiru (@ 192.138.149.4)
on: Thu Jan 4 10:52:35 EST 2001
Re: the Trinity. V P K Sundaram (Prof @ BhArathidAsan Univ) says that pallavi, anupallavi, charanam format of keerthanais were inspired thEvaram poetry structures. There is also a view that sAma vEdam itself adopted the 7-note structure only after getting exposed to tamil music. Diwakar Nikhand says that sarigamapadani are nothing but kural, thuththam, kaikkiLai, uzhai, iLi, viLari and thAram (the tamil names for the seven surams). suram is a tamil word. It is also called narambu (from the string in a yAzh). saragamapadani came to TN around 6 century. Before that it was all tha na na..

From: doubter (@ 208.142.210.30)
on: Thu Jan 4 11:40:33 EST 2001
kiru

It is amazing to know that 'suram' is a tamil word. I thought it was borrowed from sanskrit 'swaram'. Moreover, Hindustani also uses sarigamapadhani. How do you explain that? Who formulated sariga.. first and based on what?

From: kiru (@ 192.138.149.4)
on: Thu Jan 4 15:34:25 EST 2001
I think the etymology of suram is similar to surangam, surai i.e tunnel. The sound from a tunnel. Also, the sound from the hollow cavity of a kuzhal. 'swaram' has a different etymology. It means one that is sweet(musical) by itself.
I think it is difficult to say specifically who invented sarigamapadani. It came from north so thats why you see Hindustani using it as well.
Even now you can see folk musicians using tha na na for their singing/practice (just like in some IR movies) and totally unaware of sarigamapadani.
cilappadhikAram (2nd century AD) is the source for all kinds of info on music in TN those days.

even the language sanskrit is like our carnatic/hindustani music...the word sanskrit means well refined. there should be some pre-exisiting thing to be "well refined". hence, if u see, the grammar a.k.a sanskrit is the most structured language in the world. similarly carnatic/hindustani music are grammatical form, so if u see them, they will be more structured than colloquial (folk or other forms) music. this does not mean that colloquial singing is mean or bad. it is fyi.

also the letters sa ri ga ma pa da ni are representatives (or) symbols of the swarams and not swarams by themselves...swarams are audible frequencies (i suttified these definitions from mahadevan ramesh's article and other pundits' definitions for carnatic music). might be these representatives/symbolic charecters were derived only from tamil, might be not...it doesnt matter.

but it does not mean that carnatic or, for that matter as our doubter doubts, hindustani music got the entire idea of grammatising music only from tamizh... after all carnatic/hindustani music are grammatical form of music so they should have their parents...might be they are from vedas or might be derived from local singing be it tamizh or any other olden indian language... what is the problem??

I think it is difficult to say specifically who invented sarigamapadani. It came from north so thats why you see Hindustani using it as well...

yes kiru. i think we don't have any proof about who invented the sa-ri-ga-ma-pa-da-ni. But one point I wish to state here regarding our Carnatic and Hindustani Music. I think I read in Ramesh Mahadevan's article or somewhere that, long back both styles were one and there was a period when this unified style start deviating and became Carnatic and Hindustani Style.

IMHO if we look this(our) ancient classical art as an entity of our entire country instead of looking from racial aspects like tamil/dravidian and northern, and people explore them then may be we get some more information. Or else, again IMHO we may have many dead ends or conflicting answers.

All IMHO

End Digression

From: kiru (@ 192.138.149.4)
on: Mon Jan 8 10:43:27 EST 2001
suraikkAi - is this tamil or sanskrit ?
sur + angam = surangam. This is the etymology according to V P K Sundaram. I haven't checked the Dravidian Etymological Dictionary because my books are still in boxes (after I moved).
It is quite possible Carnatic and Hindustani where at one point the same. But the roots of carnatic music are very well documented in tholkAppiyam and cilappadikAram. There are too many references to the seven curams. (I can provide if needed).
Its not just carnatic music. The 12 swarasthanam (cura nilaikaL) looks to have been developed in TN/India and in the west at the same time. This is based on the date of an antique veenai. I am curious about the origin of carnatic music, because to me it sounds not very different from our folk music. That is the reason for my intellectual curiosity. Also, another theory I have is it is well suited for tamil/south indian languages (like Italian for Opera).